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Euro 88, only 8 teams qualified for the finals then, a flukey last-minute goal denied them a semi-final place. USA 94: Beat Italy (beaten finalists), qualified for the last 16. Japan & Korea 2002, Drew with Germany (beaten finalists) and Cameroon (African champions at the time), unbeaten in open play in all four games, unlucky not to beat Spain in the last 16. Qualified for Euro 2012. Euro 2016 qualifying: took 4 points off Germany (World Champions) and came back from the dead to make the playoffs. Made short work of a strong Bosnian team in the playoffs. Euro 2016: qualified for the last 16 Not bad for a small nation in a trully global sport. What I don't like is how the media turns on the team when they are not doing what they did above and in contrast, goes really easy on the rugby teams. Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 18/08/2017 16:55:16 2035170 Link 3 |
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A song?? It's the National Anthem not 'The Irish Rover' were talking about.
Laois76 (Laois) - Posts: 1270 - 18/08/2017 17:08:54 2035183 Link 6 |
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Im not suggesting that at all but well done on a lazy attempt to demonize me.
RoyalBadger (Meath) - Posts: 571 - 18/08/2017 17:54:12 2035198 Link 1 |
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I think its utterly pathetic that people will take a bizzare moral high ground and not support an Irish team over the 2 mins of music that precedes them. The players dont choose it the blazers and politicians do.
RoyalBadger (Meath) - Posts: 571 - 18/08/2017 17:56:07 2035199 Link 1 |
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We differ on this opinion Killarney 76! I think we settled for a bit less. They didn't win a game in the 1990 World Cup. In '94 they got out of their group. Charlton had a great squad in '90 and another in '94 with many playing in the top division in England. If they were let show some of their attacking talents with their defensive solidity who knows how either could have done? 2002, without Keane, got out of the group but on the day should have beaten Spain. Played some nice football though. 2012, Trap did well to get a weak enough squad to Poland and Ukraine but trusted their attacking instincts even less than Charlton. They had a 2/3 chance of getting to the last 16 in 2016 though they did play a decent brand of football. I agree the men's national rugby team gets an easier ride from the media. Though there are less rugby nations in Europe they're consistently in the top two. The IRFU have spindoctors to put a good shine in bad stories. Why wouldn't they, they want to attract new players. I think the soccer get a tougher time from the media because it's the most popular international sport here. Everyone has an opinion from working class to Chloe and Fiachra. I also think it's easier to sell papers with bad news and because many soccer players are very well paid they're sitting ducks for tabloids. GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7344 - 18/08/2017 18:08:34 2035201 Link 0 |
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That's it too, they are soft targets because they live overseas and are millionaires. If they were living amongst us they would get an easier ride. The passion for the jersey the likes of Robbie Keane showed was unbelievable. He was so proud to wear the jersey and was always available to play when fit. The Robbie Brady interview after the Italian game gave a great insight into what it meant to play for Ireland for him. He was as emotional as Mullane was in his famous 2004 post match interview. Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 18/08/2017 18:21:35 2035203 Link 0 |
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I never said i wouldn't support an irish team because the national anthem wasn't played. But i'm not very happy at it not being played. Laois76 (Laois) - Posts: 1270 - 18/08/2017 18:43:28 2035210 Link 6 |
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you musnt know soccer very well if you think qualifying for the 2002 world cup wasnt a huge over achievement, did pretty well at the tournament also...netherlands 94, spain 02, france 16 all superior teams to us, only 12 was a true disaster but again beaten by much superior sides
alano12 (Dublin) - Posts: 2208 - 18/08/2017 22:57:50 2035274 Link 0 |
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Nora Stepleton (Donegal) played her fair share of GAA before the big move across the water for College. She won an All Ireland Junior in 2003 and came off the bench to play in the All Ireland Intermediate Final for Donegal in 2010. Excellent servant to Irish Rugby also... beidhmeanseo (Donegal) - Posts: 137 - 19/08/2017 10:51:41 2035313 Link 0 |
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Badger it is not the 'song' that is the issue but the fact that they are ignoring a language for political reasons. Why should Irish be banned? witnof (Dublin) - Posts: 1604 - 19/08/2017 12:44:44 2035327 Link 0 |
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Roy Keane brought us to the 2002 World Cup. Even without him we did well there, better football under McCarthy than Charlton, Trapattoni or O'Neill. But we should have beaten Spain. No point in being over-awed by 'big soccer nations'. Every team is beatable. Some were worried about our qualifier game v Austria. Why? We shouldn't fear anyone in the World Cup qualifier games remaining. We shouldn't take anyone lightly, especially Serbia, but we're capable of winning all our games. O'Neill though can be a bit conservative. Mind you so can Joe Schmidt.
GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7344 - 19/08/2017 13:25:55 2035331 Link 0 |
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Hey went unbeaten in that qualifying campaign too. Beat the Dutch with 10 men, great days.
Killarney.87 (Tipperary) - Posts: 2513 - 19/08/2017 14:36:28 2035336 Link 0 |
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People giving out about singing silly songs...ffs Go watch the X Factor. Its sport not the Eurovision. bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4624 - 19/08/2017 15:05:02 2035341 Link 1 |
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Then don't play any national anthems from any country in that case.Clearly they are viewed as being part of international sport however for some reason there seems to be a shame attached to playing the national anthem of 26/32 counties represented in the Irish team but no shame attached to playing any other anthems.I think that's what people have an issue with.
uibhfhaili1986 (Offaly) - Posts: 1296 - 19/08/2017 15:57:33 2035349 Link 2 |
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Not forgetting Claire Molloy (Galway), Hannah Tyrell (Dublin) and Nora Stapleton (Donegal). Could have done with the pace, power and skill of a few of the great Cork team of the last decade. Curlew66 (Roscommon) - Posts: 506 - 19/08/2017 20:54:19 2035405 Link 0 |
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we could have beaten spain, should is a stretch, they had much superior players than us, it was a clear over achievement to even get to that world cup so stop pretending it wasnt, all this in the biggest sport in the world by far
alano12 (Dublin) - Posts: 2208 - 19/08/2017 22:36:05 2035438 Link 0 |
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Why was it an over-achievement to get to the World Cup? What had that Holland or Portugal team achieved before that qualifying campaign. On the day we should have beaten Spain. We had the chances. Irrelevant that they had superior players, they weren't so superior on the day. No point in bowing down or being fearful of the opposition going into a game thinking we'll probably lose. We beat the world champions less than two years ago. Did they not have 'superior' players? GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7344 - 20/08/2017 09:12:04 2035453 Link 0 |
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Look at the teams both Holland and Portugal had. They both got to the semi finals of Euro 2000 and were beaten in extra time/penalties in that tournament. It was a massive achievement to get to the World Cup in 2002. uibhfhaili1986 (Offaly) - Posts: 1296 - 20/08/2017 09:58:21 2035456 Link 0 |
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They got to the last 4 of the 2000 Euros. What did they win. Did Greece not win the next Euros? How highly-rated were they before the tournament? Denmark '92? People laughed at Keane in 2002 , before his absolute stupidity in whinging pre-tournament, saying they should be there to win. He meant they should fear no team. Apologies lads, I agree with a lit of what ye're saying. Maybe it's being from Mayo hearing, sure we did great and we do do great. But we should get a bit more and get over that line. Alano, Dublin don't fear anyone and even when they weren't going well they'd have mughty confudencr. I think even if we don't have a load of superstars the soccer team can do better.
GreenandRed (Mayo) - Posts: 7344 - 20/08/2017 11:53:48 2035488 Link 0 |
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eh holland and portugal were both exceptional in euro 2000, the dutch had also reached the 98 semis, ..portugal had the best player in the world or one of at the time along with a lot of other quality players..they were considered porutgals golden generation of players...the dutch also had lots of top players, portugal reached the 2004 final after,..you really are going to extreme lengths to belittle the achievements of our soccer team, do you realise what over achieving is?...sometimes you just have to accept you have no leg to stand on when it comes to this point...what do you actually realistically expect us to be doing in soccer because its laughable what you are asking, we relied on getting a late penalty against spain to even get to penalties so to claim we should have beaten them is quite a reach...and as for greece, they proved themselves to be a consistently well drilled side qualifying for numerous tournaments and always being competitive..its only recently that theyve fallen off completely
alano12 (Dublin) - Posts: 2208 - 20/08/2017 21:09:44 2035742 Link 0 |